College towns: Berkeley and Stanford

Caption

Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Stanford, home to stately old buildings, was a farm before 1885, when Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, created Leland Stanford Junior University in honor of their recently deceased son. With ambitions to compete with the Ivy League, the Stanfords hired Frederick Law Olmsted to design the landscape. The first students, including Herbert Hoover, arrived in 1891.

Stanford, home to stately old buildings, was a farm before 1885, when Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, created Leland Stanford Junior University in honor of their recently deceased son. With ambitions to compete with the Ivy League, the Stanfords hired Frederick Law Olmsted to design the landscape. The first students, including Herbert Hoover, arrived in 1891. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Martin Griffith catches up on some reading outside the University Library at UC Berkeley, which simmers with undergraduate enthusiasm, intellectual fermentation and political skirmishing. The main action is in Cals 178-acre central core, which faces San Francisco Bay from the low slopes of the Berkeley Hills.

Martin Griffith catches up on some reading outside the University Library at UC Berkeley, which simmers with undergraduate enthusiasm, intellectual fermentation and political skirmishing. The main action is in Cals 178-acre central core, which faces San Francisco Bay from the low slopes of the Berkeley Hills. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)